


The Conscience of the Augment

by fresne



Series: Voyages of the Bakerstreet [17]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Angst, Murder Mystery, Other, The feels, non main character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-27 06:09:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 14,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15679575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fresne/pseuds/fresne
Summary: The Bakerstreet transports a theater troop to treaty negotiations with the Tamarians, a race that speaks only in references to commonly known stories. A troop that is very well known to John. The Watson Players.As family tensions rise, and new secrets are revealed, John is forced to confront a family history he never knew existed.





	1. Bihr Sh'Alaack POV

**Author's Note:**

> I'll be releasing this one slightly differently (a chapter a day until Saturday - business trip allowing) because I want to savor it a bit.
> 
> It's also worth saying that while in most cases, I've tried to keep the timeline of the original series working as if the original episodes never happened and now it's a hundred years later, this episode I'm just moving into the ST:NG/DS9 present.  
> http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_Conscience_of_the_King_(episode)

Bihr guided Thil's hands as he lit the strands of hair she'd cut for this purpose in the small brass basin. Next she guided Shor's hands in the ritual, and through the simple words honoring her parents, who had gone before into the realm of the dead. In asking for them for help in guiding them and protecting them in this life.

Shrilaas and Keraass were both too young to participate in the Day of the Ancestors' rituals. They were delighted to be distracted by the symbols of the four genders: star, soil, water, and fire.

She had not told the children yet how their grandparents had died. That could wait until they were older.

Until she was older.

When the wounds from those events had faded.

It must not be never.

As Bihr was shen, her spiritual element was water. Her gender represented blood and the connection between generations. Her parents had not bled when they'd died. Burned to ash, there would never be a funeral mask or cubes containing memories of them for the clan. Many in her clan had been reduced to dust. Those that had not starved.

She was the blood that remained.

Ishros held her and Shroleb kissed her cheek while she remembered her parents. Placed a drop of blood in a glass of water. Carried it to the altar they had erected in their quarters. She said, "Uzaveh the Infinite watch over them," and tried to believe it.


	2. Chapter 2

Hudson called up the mission specs on the monitor. John clutched his coffee and tried to sit as if he and Sherlock hadn't finished having sex fifteen minutes before the briefing.

"Oh, this looks like a fun one," blurted Smith. "We get to transport a theater company. I love live theater."

"Transport," moaned Sherlock theatrically and did a fair impression of a dying maiden over his chair. But by now the command staff knew to ignore those type of comments.

"That's right." Hudson called up a schematic of their route. "The Federation is opening negotiations for a peace treaty with the Tamarians, a race who speaks entirely in references to commonly understood stories. The Federation negotiation team has requested a theater troop capable of performing a wide assortment of plays from throughout the Federation to help establish a shared language that can be used in in the treaty."

John had a sinking feeling. A cold, wet, sinking into arctic waters feeling as the name of the theater company was called up.

"The Watson's theater troop," said Hunter. "Hey, Doctor Watson, didn't you say that your family runs a travelling theater company?"

Definitely the arctic.

Sherlock was sitting up now and looking with interest at the dossier on the Watson theater company that the Federation had helpfully supplied. Complete with headshots.

"Yeah, that’s my family," said John. Suddenly certain, absolutely certain that his mother was going to know everything the moment she walked on the ship. He hadn't precisely told his parents that he was involved with Sherlock. His commanding officer.

He, of course, sent communiques for major holidays and birthdays, and tried to chat with his parents once a month outside of that, but saying that sort of thing over an open channel had always seemed like a bad idea.

She was going to take one look and know. Dad, he couldn't be sure, but Mum would know.

He wanted to go to his quarters immediately and get rid of all the sex toys and Sherlock's latest experiments. All of it. Lock the bottom drawer of the desk in his office.

He reminded himself that he was a grown man. He was a Starfleet officer. A doctor. He'd faced down planet killers.

He wanted more than one day to prepare.

Later, Sherlock watched him tidying his quarters. "You're concerned about your parents. You haven't told them that we are sharing coitus."

"Mum knows that something happened back at the Academy." It seemed so long ago when he'd been so angry with Sherlock. So much had happened since then. "But, yeah, I haven't… they don't need to know."

Sherlock nodded silently. Watching him. "Should I remain distant while they are on the ship?"

"No," John blurted, aware that he was being completely contradictory. He shook his head to clear it. "Mum will knows something is up. She's got a sixth sense about my emotions. You know how mothers can be."

Sherlock looked away. Went wherever it was he went when his parents came up. But given that John had literally pried into his mind to learn about his childhood, John wasn't going to pry more. Finally Sherlock said, "My experiences may be at a variance to yours."

John was still not prepared by the time they arrived at Planet Queue. He was completely thrown when the shuttle docked at the Starfleet base planet side, and they were greeted by not only his parents, but by Captain Sholto. Formerly Professor Sholto. Formerly dated for several disastrous weeks in his second year, Sholto.

His thoughts ran in hysterical little circles like Zyan snow weasels on a wheel. This could not be happening.

He hadn't seen Sholto since their brief affair at the academy.

Two professors that he'd slept with.

One of them his current commanding officer…lover… partner…whatever they were.

And his parents. In the same room.

At least Harry wasn't there. At least there was that.

His mother enfolded him in a hug. "John, it's been too long. Look at you. My son. A Doctor." She looked sweetly into his eyes. "A tool of the military establishment."

"Mum, you've seen me since I got my diploma." An awkward hell visit just after Harry's breakup with Clara with Harry sending increasingly angry barbs John's way. She couldn't seem to let go that he'd been the twin with problems in their teens, and now things were reversing. It was hardly his fault that she was torpedoing her relationships, and if she wanted more than the theater, that was up to her.

Not perhaps the best things for him to have lobbed her way the last time he'd seen her.

"Dear, I'm your mother. It's my job to jab my fingers into all your buttons." She playfully poked him on the shoulder.

His father, as was typical, was more reserved. "John, you look well."

"You too." John hugged his Mother. Her scent surrounding him. Comforting him as sense memory took him back to childhood.

"Your parents have agreed to give us the pleasure of their performance of Lear this afternoon, before you take them away from us," said Sholto. He looked worn. Still marked with scars from when his ship had been destroyed at the battle of Wolf 359. His eyes darted between John and John's father. "I'm looking forward to it."

Sherlock stepped forward. Not coincidentally moving between Sholto and John. "I'm not sure why. Your tone and body language clearly indicate that you don't enjoy live theater. The regulation layout of this shuttle bay. Everything in its prescribed place. The way you wear your hair. Your formal uniform on a remote base on a small planet. They all speak to a man who likes to be in control of his situation. That must be why you initiated relationships with your students when you were teaching at the academy. That put you in a position of power and control."

John did not kick him, but it was a near thing.

He must have done something terrible in a past life, because this was going to be hell.

John's mum, ever a saint, took John by the arm. "Let's be off to the theater. It takes me longer and longer to put on my makeup every year."

The performance itself was great. His father had if anything gotten better as Lear. While he was quiet and reserved in social situations, the moment Karidian Watson stepped on a stage, he was transformed by the role. Harry was mostly sober in her role as Cordelia, the loving daughter. Clara in the role of Goneril appeared to be using her anger from her breakup with Harry to inform her rage. His mother was amazing as the wise fool. He was surprised to see his cousin Shelly in the cast and shocked to realize that many of the other roles were being filled by her now nearly grown children.

In his mind, they were frozen as screaming infants. But somewhere along the way, they'd grown up.

They were to have dinner after the performance.

He prayed for the play to never end, but no matter how he willed it, Cordelia died and Lear carried her across the stage weeping, before dying to end the play.

The Officer's lounge on the base was fine. The food was fine.

The conversation was very not fine.

Harry immediately poured herself some synthale when she arrived. Finishing it in three quick swallows.

At John's look, she said, "After a performance, I need it. You wouldn't know anything about the emotional rigors of performance. First you had a melt down and now you're a Starfleet golden boy. You don't know anything about what I need."

"To fuck around apparently," muttered Clara, moving to sit at the opposite end of the table. Leaving in her wake an awkward silence.

"So, Karidian, Elise," Sholto clapped his hands together in a sudden crack, "I'd be fascinated to know how you met. What started you in theater?"

John smiled and sat down. That at least wasn't dangerous territory.

His mum sat down across from him, putting her hand over Dad's. "My family has always been in the theater. Back in the day they were on the London stage. Then New London. Then traveling the stars. My parents were doing a run of 'The Sky's the Limit' on Ceti III, when our lead dancer broke his leg."

"The lead dances all over this bar and kicks over bottles of alcohol to show the depths of his despair and anger," said Harry, pouring another drink. "It's fucking insane."

"Language," said Mum with a wry look at Harry's glass. "They'll think we raised you in a barn."

"It's a dizzy-eyed nut hook," said Harry, smiling too sweetly.

"That's better," said Mother. "Anyway, where was I?"

"How you met John's father," said Sherlock.

John was not going to move his knee away from Sherlock's. He was an adult. There were admittedly all sorts of regulations against the sort of adult relationship he and Sherlock were engaging in, but he was an adult.

"Thank you, so there we were. I had no one to dance with, when this ragged looking man," she squeezed Dad's hand, "with wild hollow eyes," she pecked his cheek, "really you were a fright, applied for the job." She held up her hands. "Picture it. A play about lost elegance in the opening days of WWII. It was all dancing in tail coats and military uniforms. My Karidian couldn’t have been further from the part, but Daddy was desperate, so we gave him an audition." She slipped her arm through Dad's. "His rendition of 'One More for My Baby,' was so angry and raw, we were on our feet by the time he was done. Then we danced our first waltz, and he danced his way into my heart." She sighed, and John couldn't help sigh with her. He loved that story. "When my father passed, we renamed the troupe Watsons for a new generation and the rest is theater history." She waved her right hand for an extra beauty queen flourish.

"Karidian, what were you doing before Ceti III that had you so hollow eyed?" asked Sholto.

Dad, in typical Dad fashion, shrugged, and ate a carrot.

"Oh, don't mind my Karidian," said Mum. "He doesn't say much off stage." She flashed the table a smile. "I certainly do enough talking for the both of us. Speaking of which," Mum smiled archly and the arctic sinking feeling returned, "Commander Holmes, John's mentioned you so many times over the years, I feel as if I know you," Mum leaned forward, her smile bright and avaricious as Glint the Acquisitive , "and yet, I feel as if I hardly know anything about you. I'd love to get to know you better."

Sholto blurted, "Ceti III, that's only a few light years from Taurus IV, isn't it?"

"Um," said Mum. "I… maybe. Not really up on my Federation astro cartography."

"Yes," said Sherlock, who looked as cool as the arctic ice. "It is the closest planet along the surveyed routes."

"Perhaps, that's why you were so gaunt," said Sholto. "Were you one of the colonists on Taurus IV? Terrible when that fungus blighted all the crops and not a single replicator on the colony. I was an ensign assigned to the base. Watched it disintegrate before my eyes into chaos. People starving. Rioting. Until Kodos 'the Executioner', our base Commander decided that the way to solve the problem was to use an anti-matter disintegrator to kill four thousand people, so that there would be enough food for those that remained. He told them that they were going to be cryo-frozen. Led them into the chamber and killed them."

"How awful," said Clara, turning a bit white. She'd always had a tender heart. "Those poor people."

John shot Harry a glance, but she wasn't looking at Clara at all. So much for Mum's hope that she and Clara would patch things up.

"Oh, it was even worse than that." Sholto smiled grimly. "Not a few hours later, our relief arrived with enough food for everyone." He stared at John's dad. "There's not a day that goes by that I don’t think about that."

"Then be sure to have plenty of anti-fungal supplies," said Sherlock. "So your career doesn’t involve the destruction of two colonies, being removed from an academic position, and losing a ship." John did kick him at that, but Sherlock, the berk, only sniffed.

"What happened to Kodos? Did he go to prison?" asked Clara.

"No," Sholto's grim smile grew even more rictus strange. "He escaped justice by killing himself in the anti-matter disintegrator. Of course, that leaves no trace." He leaned forward, "and all his records were scrambled from Memory Alpha in a freak accident."

Harry put her glass down, not quite catching the edge of the table. It toppled over the edge and shattered. The strong scent of alcohol filled the air. She said, "The One More for My Baby number is like that. Glass everywhere." She started to climb up onto the table. "Let me show you."

"Harry," hissed Clara. "You're pissed."

Father wrapped his arms around Harry and pulled her off the table. "Not now, love."

"Kay, but it's a great number." Harry laughed. "Lots of angry feelings. It's beautiful."

Dad glanced at Mum, and at her nod, said, "I'll take her back to our quarters." He guided Harry out of the room.

"Does anyone know if someone has turned those events into a play?" asked Mum. Everyone looked at her. "It would be exceptionally dramatic. A colony in chaos. The seduction of hard choices. Karaidian would be simply fantastic in that role." She dabbed her lips. "If I didn't take the role of Kodos for myself." She put down her napkin. "Commander Holmes, I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to talk over the next week. But I should make sure they're alright." By which John knew she meant that she was going to check if the events on Taurus IV had been turned into a play, and if not work on her own version. Mum was incorrigible.

The conversation turned to more pleasant topics. John caught up with his cousins. Sherlock seemed to be ignoring everyone, which meant he was watching everything. Dinner was followed by a tour of the facilities, such as they were. It wasn't a large base. 

John found himself walking next to Sholto, who abruptly asked, "What are your earliest memories of your family? What about your Father's relatives? What do you know about them?"

He'd been like that when he and John had been involved too. Part of what had been so creepy beyond how uncomfortable he'd been with John during sex. John shrugged. "They were both Augments. He doesn't talk about them much. Harry and I did one of those DNA sequencer things back when we were in our early teens to figure out which Khanates our ancestors came from and, of course, there's the one we get from Starfleet."

"No, but your father specifically. Has he ever mentioned any old friends? Where did he grow up?"

"Why are you asking?" John moved away from Sholto.

"He thinks your father is Kodos, the executioner," said Sherlock, moving between them. "Now, back away from my doctor."

"Oh, like that is?" Sholto glared at the both of them. "Act so high and mighty because of my relationships, but its fine for you." His expression suddenly changed. "Please, John. If our relationship ever meant anything to you, you have to help me. Thousands of people died. He looks so much like Kodos."

"It's a big galaxy," said John. "There are a lot of people who look alike. I mean take Commander Holmes. He's a dead ringer for Khan Brittanus. Doesn't make him a Khan though."

"John, your father sounds just like Kodos too." Sholto leaned forward to take John's hand, but John stepped back.

John was one step away from hitting a superior officer. His hands were in fists. His heart was pounding. "My father is not a mass murderer. He's an actor. He kills people on stage with replicated synthblood. That's all."

Sholto breathed out harshly. "If you don't help me, I'll report your relationship with Holmes."

"Good night," said John. He walked stiffly away. Sholto had no evidence that John and Sherlock were involved. Sholto had been traumatized by his experiences. That was all. He needed to see a counselor. John might even suggest it.

That night, John slept alone. He really wasn't much of a one for company.

Mostly, he punched his pillow and tossed and turned. Did not call Sherlock to ask him to drop by.

The next day, he helped his family load their belongings, mostly stage equipment, into the shuttle. Did not ask the stage manager how Tadpole was doing. Did not say anything when Harry said, "Oh, look it's the high and mighty Lieutenant come to help. Maybe if Mum and Dad had sent me to a school to keep me from fucking my way through the theater circuit like a little cunt, I could be a fucking Lieutenant too."

John did not take up the bait.

He had in the past. It never went well.

John packed. He smiled. He helped Mum and Dad settle into his quarters on the Bakerstreet and told them it didn't matter if he slept on a replicated bed. He could have set them up in one of the empty quarters, but family time wasn't something to be wasted.

They were only an hour away when word came from Queue base. There had been an accident. For some reason after dinner, Sholto had gone off by himself in the hills above the base and fallen to his death in the dark.

It left a sour taste in John's mouth. An unsteady feeling. As if the mooring lines of a stage curtain had come undone. He told himself not to be stupid and stared out the window at the stars from his replicated bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And by the way the dance number they're talking about is this:  
> https://youtu.be/FD7sqGJ3NBg  
> Look at around minute 3:06


	3. Sherlock POV

Sherlock was aware that John did not wish to know more about the events on Taurus IV. It may as well have been written in lights over his head.

But Sherlock could not operate in ignorance. He had to know.

He brought up all available information about the massacre. The timing of the fungal plague that destroyed all the crops. The riots as the colony fragmented. The reports on how colonists were chosen were contradictory. Some said it had been by lottery. Others claimed certain groups within the colony had been targeted. What was consistent was that if one member of a family was chosen, the entire family went into what they thought was to going to be cryo-sleep until relief came.

He studied the method of execution. A matter/anti-matter chamber that killed in micro-seconds. Of the four thousand dead, they wouldn't have known. He examined the details about Kodos supposed remains, which given the method of suicide could just have easily been the remains of a particularly leafy potted plant.

That Kodos' records, including his DNA and image, had been scrambled was a coincidence too improbable to be believed.

He delved into rumors over the years that Kodos had escaped. Helped by a crewperson on the USS Enterprise, which had delivered the needed supplies a few hours too late.

Ceti III had been the next stop made by the Enterprise after it delivered its supplies to Taurus IV. It was possible that was what had drawn Sholto's attention to Karidian Watson in the first place.

None of it proved anything.

Facts. Sherlock wanted facts and what he had were opinions. Conjecture.

Karidian Watson's records in the Federation census were useless. There were nine thousand, eight hundred, and forty six Karidian Watsons. Three hundred and ten of whom were alpha Augments. Ninety-four of which had no pictures or details on file. The spouse of Elise Watson, father of Harry Watson and John Watson, had had minimal records on file until he began his life on stage, which was not atypical for individuals from some of the more back to nature colony worlds.

Sherlock extended the investigation into Sholto himself. Sholto had requested the transfer to teach at the Academy the same year John had been accepted as a new student. The reason for Sholto's transfer was not precisely the one rumor had assigned. Although, certainly a relationship with a student had been involved.

Sherlock expanded his search. Over the last ten years, seven of the nine Starfleet personnel assigned to that base on Taurus IV had died under accidental circumstances. Each time the Watson's theater troop had been performing on planet. Now eight, given Sholto's demise.

It was also true that given Sherlock's own family issues, he was not about to tell John any of this. Not without more facts.

He broadened his search to all surviving colonists. One of the negotiators with the Tamarians, Ambassador Sirok of New Vulcan had lived on the colony. He clicked through the list and found Sh'Alaack staring back at him. She had been a young child at the time. The only member of her immediate family to survive.

All four of her parents had died in the anti-matter chamber.

He found her deep in the left Nacelle working on a recalibration. She looked up at his approach. "Commander Holmes, is there something I can do for you?"

"You survived the massacre on Taurus IV. How?"

"Oh." She put down her spanner. _Her left antennae twitched. Spiked heart rate. Increased breathing. Rapid eye motion. Pheromone signature shift indicative of fear._ "It is strange that you should bring that up for it has been in my thoughts much of late." She took a deep breath. "I have been unable to speak the words to my family, who bear the weight of my moods. But if my children are to know their grandparents, if my partners are to know why sometimes darkness takes me, then I must practice the speaking of them."

_She wasn't reacting to the Watsons. Andorian Days of the Ancestors had only been a week before. Hudson had organized a number of cross cultural festivities for the occasion._

"I… it was foolish. The weeks before had been very bad as food became scarce. Terrifying seeing people I thought were good people start to… our parents hid us in the woods, me and my promised bond-mates. I remember how dull brown the scrub was in front of our hideout. The way the rain dripped through the branches."

She straightened the spanner again. Sherlock was careful to remain very still. To allow no movement to interrupt the flow of her story.

"One day, our parents came to get us. They told us we were lucky. We'd been selected to be cryo-frozen, but that sounded cold to me. So, I refused. I ran away deeper into the woods to hide. I somehow thought that I was going to find something to eat, but I was just a child. When I came back, they had left all of our remaining supplies in the shelter and a note that they loved me. To not to eat too quickly, because what I had would need to last for several weeks. It was so lonely there all alone. I went down to the main plaza."

She adjusted the spanner again. Sherlock watched her eyes moving restlessly around the narrow space within the Nacelle.

"Kodos was sitting all alone on a cement block. He was crying." Her antennae twitched. "I didn't know what had happened. I told him I wouldn't mind the cold. That I'd be good." She put a hand to her mouth and continued with a muffled voice. "He hugged me. That monster hugged me. All the while sobbing that the Enterprise had come and it was too late. I was hungry. We all were. I went to get food. I only found out later what… that… my parents, that those my parents had arranged for me to bond with were gone too. Most of my clan." She spat on the floor. Glared at the spittle. Cleaned it up. "I was the last person to see Kodos alive, may Uzaveh the Infinite bathe his soul in ashes!"

She sat there silently for long moments. When her heart rate had slowed somewhat, he said, "If he were alive, would you know him if you saw him?"

She grimaced. "Maybe. I was very young." Her pink rimmed eyes narrowed. "I'd know his scent. I dream about it sometimes, smothering me." She swallowed. "He was an Augment. An alpha. I don't hold it against Humans though. He's dead!" Her heart rate increased again. "He has to be dead. Everyone told me that that monster was dead." She picked up the spanner and held it in a pale knuckled grip.

"There's a panel that's is out of order in the corridor outside of Doctor Watson's quarters. Put it on your schedule to repair it."

"Which one?"

He glared, because she could not be this dense. "The one with the best access to observe Doctor Watson's parents, who are staying in his room."

"Oh," she swallowed. "Yes, sir."

She still holding the spanner when he left the nacelle.


	4. John POV

"We don't want to interfere in your relationships," said Mum. "If you want to spend some time with your Inamorata, by all means. No reason to sleep on a borrowed bed when there's a downy lover's bower to hand I always say."

"Mum! Holmes and I are friends!" John tried to keep the high pitched note out of his voice, but couldn't. Not with his mother looking so brightly at him. Especially because he could feel the "with extras," pouring off him.

His father glanced up briefly from the book he was reading, but as was generally the case, said nothing.

"Slut," coughed his sister. His twin sing songed, "Commander Holmes said something brilliant. Holmes is such a genius. Sherlock told me water is wet. Imagine that! Amazing! Holmes says. Sherlock says. Ugh." Harry flopped back on the couch.

John ached for the past.

There had been a time when he and Harry had been inseparable. The only difference being the different colored shirts their parents made them wear to tell them apart.

They'd both put on gold rings for their Gender Reveal party. They'd played the same roles on stage. Switching out for each other. When they weren't doing children's versions of Shakespearean twin confusion. Real twins. Not just two eggs, but a single egg splitting into multiples as a result of the treatments mum had gotten to be able to have them.

Maybe it was when they realized that they had two siblings that hadn't survived gestation. Not to mention the ones Mum lost before she had them.

Maybe it had been when they'd sent away spit to get their DNA results from a dodgy clinic on the moon.

Maybe it was when Harry realizing that she should have been an Alpha. Hormone treatments and their scents no longer aligned.

Probably when she'd been so above it all when John had gotten into so much trouble. Pseudo heat had nothing to do with her. She'd told him he stank like a scabrous whore all the time. Their playful childhood pushing turning into real fights. They'd broken a few doors.

Screaming matches.

John had gone off to the Magdalene's to straighten himself out, but getting some peace in the family had played a part too.

While he was away, Harry grew out her hair. Put on a silver ring. Threw the gold one at John when he announced he wasn't joining the theater company. That his dream of joining Starfleet and becoming a doctor was real.

They'd gone from not needing to talk to never talking.

Unless it was to fight.

Harry said, "You either want your Lochinvar, or you're already doing it. I bet you've done it on this couch." Her lips curled.

Which since she wasn't wrong, John found himself retorting, "You're just imagining things because you destroyed your marriage by cheating on Clara."

Harry glared at him. "Clara misunderstood what she saw."

"Fine, you keep talking about me. Explain why you kept sneaking off at all hours of the night. Why should saw you leaving the theater with some bloke. The time she saw you snogging a stranger while dressed as the pirate queen of Orion in some bar," said John, who'd wanted to take Harry's side. Had taken Harry's side. Until Clara showed him the picture of Harry with some random Human. Laid into him as a proxy for laying into Harry.

"John Hamisha Watson, that's between Harry and Clara." Then abruptly switching course, she said, with an arched eyebrow, "Although, I'll note, that costume never did reappear in the prop box. Hand made by your grandmother, too." She sighed. "Now there was a pirate queen. She brought the house down on Betazed. I had hoped to play there at least once."

Harry crossed her arms. Sinking back into the couch cushions, glaring. "See there. Mum and Dad were getting invited onto the really big theater circuits. Like when grandma and grandpa were alive. Which you had to fuck up because you were too hot for arsehole cocks to keep your legs together. We had to spend three years on a mud ball to straighten you out. Because everything is always all about you. I stayed. I'm maintaining our family tradition. But all anyone can talk about is what a success you are and somehow I'm the fuckup."

"You both got tap, singing, and piano lessons, dear," said Mum. "Quitting fencing was your choice, which I supported as your decision, and no one calls you a fuck up. You're simply exploring the darker aspects of your art. You'll be a better artist for it."

His father got up and in that wandering way of his, ambled over to where Harry was sitting. Gave her shoulder a squeeze, and at her sigh, a kiss on the top of the head, before getting himself another glass of water.

Mum neatly pivoted back to John. "John, you could invite Commander Holmes over for dinner tonight. I had hoped to have some time to get to know him. I must say," Mum wriggled her eyebrows, "he's very handsome and that scent of his… mmmm… delicious."

"Mother!" John did not know when he'd been transformed into a child again. But he knew he was as bright red.

"Elise," said Dad, returning to his seat. He placed his hand over Mother's. "Leave the boy alone. He'll make his own decisions. We either raised him to do that or we didn't."

"Thank you," said John with feeling.

"I know, it's just. I worry," said Mum. "When Shelly became so very pregnant, you took it so hard. And you were so upset with us when we sent you away to school. We didn't mean that we didn't trust your ability to choose reasonable sexual partners." She turned her hand in Dad's and raised it for a kiss, followed by a rueful look. "Your alpha is very handsome and I can tell he's just as clever as you've said he is. But if you don't get started now, you might not be able to have the choice over whether to have children or not. It's not easy for us Augments. I had to try many times to have the two of you. You won't necessarily have a monster brood like Shelly did. Although," she grinned, "they're very useful now that they're grown up a bit."

"Mum, Dad, how about a tour of the ship," said John desperately.

"Yes," said Harry. "I'd like to cancel the run of the all John all the time show."

As they came out into the corridor, Sh'Alaack had a panel off the wall directly next to his door. "Anything wrong?" John did not want to be trapped in a room with his family if the door was malfunctioning.

She tilted her head towards him.

No.

At Dad.

She flung herself backwards, crab crawling a meter back on the floor. "It's you! Kodos! I'd know your scent anywhere." She stood up holding a tool clutched in her right hand. "You hugged me. You'd just killed my family and you hugged me."

"Son, who is this?" asked his father quietly.

"Someone who is mistaken." John moved between Sh'Alaack and his father. "You don't know who you're talking about." He tried to think of the words that would convince her. "My father's a good man." Memories of a thousand kindnesses shown to strangers. Soft words and patient guidance on how to be a decent Human being. There was simply no way for John to align a person guilty of what this Kodos had done with his father.

"You are the one who is mistaken." Sh'Alaack's lips curled. She turned abruptly and walked away, leaving the panel propped up against the wall.

"Great ship you’ve got here, John," said Harry, lightly kicking the panel.

"Karidian, what is going on?" asked Mum. "First Sholto and now that Andorian. How could anyone think you could do anything so horrible?"

Dad picked up her hands and kissed them, one by one. "My love, Banquo's ghost comes late to the feast."

Mum said, "Karidian?"

Harry laughed high and wild. "Was Macbeth's hubris not stopping when he killed the king? Which doesn't make sense if Hamlet's flaw was waiting too long to avenge his father?" She smiled manically at John. "What do you think, John? Should we speak of Clytemnestra? Medea? But I forgot, you're Odysseus sailing the stars while we Penelopes weave and weave and weave. What would have been so wrong if Penelope just poisoned all the suitors and was done with it?"

"Harry, calm down," said John. He'd never seen her so worked up. Not even when she'd flung her gender ring at him with its mask for tragedy.

"What do you care?" She drew herself up to their jointly average height, but in presence she was full on Medea. "Last thing we had in common was when we were in Mum's womb. Even then we were splitting. You're sinister and I'm right. I came out first and then after that, everything has always been about you."

"Harry," said his father softly, "We love both of you equally."

"Yeah, _you_ do," said Harry. She stalked off down the hall.

Mum cleared her throat. "How about that tour." She straightened her shoulders. The show must go on in every centimeter of her. She took father's hand, twining her arm with his.

John took them around the ship. His mother nervously flitted with conversation. His father quiet and serious. Like always. They ran into Lucy and Eva. Mum cooed and looked significantly at John. His father looked like he always had. Taking a moment to show Eva a slight of hand magic trick that had her wide eyed with awe.

The entire time they were walking and talking, he’d thought to himself that someone had sent Sh’Alaack to open that panel, and there was only one candidate.

When they stopped in sickbay, he left his parents in Julian's capable hands with an agreement to meet later.

Sherlock was on the bridge. As soon as he saw John, he ducked into his ready room.

John fired the first shot as soon as the door closed behind him. "What the hell is going on?"

"Think, John. You have all the facts you need."

"Sh'Alaack isn't that much older than I am. She couldn't have been more than a child when the massacre happened. She's wrong. You put an idea in her head and now she’s got everything turned around. She doesn't know my father."

Sherlock looked at John like he pitied him, but there was nothing to pity.

Flat out nothing. The man who'd taught John to pity a magic pig for dying every night to produce food for its master wasn't the kind of man who could have killed thousands of people.

He couldn't have.

Out of nowhere, Sherlock said, "I've come to the conclusion that Sholto instigated a relationship with you in an attempt to gain access to your father. You had no classes with him. There was no reason for you to encounter each other. You yourself have described his behavior as uncomfortable during the sexual phase of your involvement. That he was overly interested in your parents. The relationship that ultimately got him transferred was when he became involved with a student working in the records office at the Academy. Someone with access to your medical records. Your DNA test. He asked her to download it for him. With that, he’d have been able to do a genetic search. But the student became uncomfortable with the situation and turned them both in."

None of this was on.

Going behind John’s back to dig up dirt on John’s family.

Twisting things that John had said in bed, after sex, and… it was not on.

"Sholto didn’t approach me. I'm the one who initiated that relationship. Just like I'm the one who initiated a relationship with you. According to my sister I'm a cock slut who likes arsehole cocks. But what I start I can…"

John stopped himself with a click of his teeth. He did an about face and stalked out of the room.


	5. Sherlock POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Travel misfortune. Hotel Wifi. Alas... things get even more serious

_Sherlock flung himself from one end of his memory palace to the other searching for a solution. He'd almost blurted out certain facts about his own parents in a desperate attempt to put John and himself on a more equal footing._

_Equal._

_Even if John's father had killed every colonist, they wouldn't be equal. He hadn't declared himself the absolute ruler of continents. He hadn't gone to war with John's Mother. In plural in a battle for a control of a planet. He hadn't dropped nuclear bombs on cities full of people. Between them, John's parents hadn't participated in a war that resulted in the deaths of thirty million Humans._

_That was no answer._

_There were no answers._

_Not in the sea that now surged in his sub-basement, because John always saved Sherlock._

_Not in the highest tower where a skein of silk still floated on a breeze._

With no idea of what else to do, Sherlock continued his research.

Sh'Alaack's scent memories were insufficient proof.

John needed to know the truth. He had to face it. If he didn't, he would leave, or break.

John's answer to the question of whether to put the needs of the many or the needs of the one first was to sacrifice himself.

Sherlock was digging through star systems worth of records, when there was alert. A coolant leak of poisonous gas in the upper left nacelle. One crewman was in critical condition.

Sherlock arrived as John removed his gloves and stepped out of the surgical bay.

Sh'Alaack breathed steadily through a face mask. Unconscious.

John said, "She's stable. She inhaled a lot of the gas, but she'll survive." He rubbed his eyes. Her bondmates are waiting outside with their kids."

Sherlock blurted, "There have been eight other deaths. All people who could have identified Kodos. All deaths occurred when the Watson troop was giving a performance on planet."

"Eight people out of four thousand survivors. A single group of actors on planets full of people."

"John, the Bakerstreet is a crew of one hundred and eight. The only new factor are our passengers."

"Accidents happen. They happen all the time and doctors fix them." He turned away.

"John."

John didn't turn back around. "I cannot believe this. Do you understand that? I cannot. I will not believe this of my father. He won’t even kill a spider. Mum has to do it. I cannot believe that not only did he kill all those people, but that he kept killing just to keep himself hidden."

This conversation had no hope of success. Only the certainty of driving John farther away. "Where's the hologram?"

"On a date with Hunter," said John. His face still turned away.

"Get him back here and don't leave Sh'Alaack alone. Have her bondmates with her or Julian at all times. Better if there are two of them." He hated to say what came next, but better this than a less fortunate result. "Or I will put someone from Security down here and then I would have to explain my reasoning."

He waited. John nodded still turned away.

Sherlock left.

He did the only thing he could think to do. He went to John's quarters. When Elise Watson greeted him at the door with Karidian glancing up from a paper book from the couch, he said, "I thought it was time we get to know each other better."


	6. John POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some lines from Sherlock's wedding speech in "The Sign of Three"

John called Sherlock every single name he could think of. That included Elizabethan swearing.

But he did what Sherlock asked. As it was, Ishros and Kehl were only too happy to stay with Sh'Alaack. Julian looked at John quizzically, but nodded when John said he was concerned that there might be side effects from the gas inhalation. Possible tetragenic mutations if not watched carefully.

He arranged for Billy and Connor to stay with Shroleb and the twins. Khatri came over and made soup. When he left, Connor was very gravely playing with toys far too young for him with the older twins on the floor.

None which stopped the internal swearing.

It did not help when the object of his anger was sitting with his parents in his quarters having tea.

"Hello, John," said Mum. "Your Sherlock," she smiled pertly, "he asked me to call him Sherlock, has been telling us about life aboard ship. He seems to think very highly of you."

"John is an excellent doctor." The arse looked John in the eyes. "The bravest and kindest and wisest Human being I have ever had the good fortune of knowing." Sherlock sipped his tea. "I am a ridiculous man. Redeemed only by the warmth and constancy of his friendship." Another sip. "A testament to his parents no doubt."

"Where's Harry?" asked John in desperation.

"He says something that sweet and beautiful about you, and you ask after your sister." Mum shook her head. "Clearly, we should have focused more on romantic comedies and fewer tragedies when you were a child."

Dad looked at Sherlock with a sort of melancholy smile. John sat next to him. "Hey, Dad are you okay?" He didn't ask if he'd been with Mum all day. He didn't ask a question he didn't want the answer to. That he simply could not believe had even occurred to him.

"Fine, Son." His father patted his hand. "Sherlock, he's a good alpha."

John did not bother to protest. He did have a sudden and horrible thought that he and Sherlock had had sex on the spot where he was sitting with his father.

His mother giggled about something and patted Sherlock’s knee.

John asked his father about the plays they were going to put on. If his back was any better after that fall he'd taken a few months ago. What medications he was taking. Normal conversations.

Because it wasn't real. They were all mistaken.

As Sherlock left, John followed him out. The panel was still leaning against the wall outside his door. He said, "I don't want to hear your deductions. Not this time." Sherlock made a slight gesture to his jaw line on both sides. Then again by his nose.

John knew what he meant. His dad had had an accident. Years ago. Not long after he met Mom. Got ganged up pretty badly. He'd had to have surgery, which was why it was ridiculous for Sholto to have claimed to have recognize his father. He couldn't have looked the same.

Exactly the sort of surgery that was easy to get to subtly change the shape of a face.

John didn't think about it.

He didn't think about it so much it felt like he'd somehow caused Harry to appear in sickbay. He pulled her past the privacy shield where Sh’Alaack was resting with her family, and into his office. "Do you think there's anything to this?"

She jerked her arm away from his. "Well, hello to you to. Behold, the mighty John Watson. Doctor. Lieutenant in Starfleet. With a handsome alpha gagging after him. An alpha that Mum can’t stop raving about and about what beautiful babies you’re going to have, here in your perfect life. Wouldn't think to look at my perfect brother that he had to be locked up in a school for naughty omegas, because he couldn't keep his pants on."

"Harry, I don't want to rehash our teen years again. I'm sorry. I went a little crazy with back then. I never said it then, but I know you didn't want to be stuck on one world. I know that it made things hard for you." He reached out to take her hands again. This time she let him with an odd smile. "You're my twin."

"Oh, that's the card you want to play." Typical, Harry, she jerked her hands away. "The scene. Loving brother in the triumph of his life talks to fuck up twin."

"No, I…" he thought better of reaching out again. "Something is going on. Sholto. Sh'Alaack. Please, you're with them all the time. Have you noticed anything? If you haven’t then I’ll know it’s just... that it’s not true."

She turned and addressed his diploma on the wall. "Did you ever follow up after we got our DNA results?"

John adjusted the pad on his desktop helplessly. "As I think you've mentioned a few thousand times, I became a little preoccupied not long after we got them."

"Ha." She tapped the golden edge of the seal on the diploma. "I did. Found a few cousins on Earth. I'd wondered sometimes if you'd done the same, but you didn't care enough to bother. Like everything else. Taking care of our parents was my problem. Ensuring the family traditions carry on, my problem." She turned to look at him and for a moment, she was Joan of Arc at trial. K'latha at her final battle. "Our father is an incredible man, who has done his best by everyone around him. Who loves both of us. If you don't understand what that's worth, then maybe you should stop pretending that you're a member of this family." On that line, a true Watson, she made her exit.

He tried to get her alone again before they made it to the site of the treaty negotiations, but she avoided him.

He wanted to talk to Sh'Alaack, to know if she'd seen anything. But when he checked in on Sh’Alaack, as he'd arranged, her family were always around. Her kids clutching drawings showing stick figure Sh’Alaack with her family.

When she got the breath mask off her face, she wouldn’t say much more than, "I was careless."

For the first time since John had met her, she didn’t sound apologetic.

She sounded angry.

He found himself staring at his father and second guessing himself. Because his father was the same man he’d always been. Quieter. His mother acting more and more brittle. Talking faster and faster, as if to cover his father’s silence with words.

Not that either of them failed to charm the crew and attending children when the Watsons troop put on a short comedy play in the cargo bay.

For a few minutes, John could forget. Laugh. As it turned out it was both Billy and Soo-Lin's first experience with live theater. Eva could hardly take her eyes of the stage. Sestre gasped when the humble shepherd beset by bandits transformed into a dinosaur. Connor clapped when the dinosaur became a star.

John did have to keep his mum from asking Billy a thousand questions about their ancestress, Anthea.

Dad was a savior there with a quiet, "Elise, give Billy some air to breathe. He's been through a great deal."

Sherlock, the arse, lurked in the back, but didn't approach John or his family other than to offer congratulations on the performance.

While all the while, John questioned everything he'd ever known.


	7. Sherlock POV

The difficulty in having a conversation with Karidian was avoiding Elise, while simultaneously wanting to talk to Elise, as she was a font of information about John. A treasure trove of details that he wanted nothing more than to dive into.

Ironically given his purpose in wanting to observe Karidian, was that she relaxed in presence. During the comedic performance in the cargo bay, there was a frenetic energy to all the performers. Elise's energy creating a feedback look to the others that came through as comedy, which had the children giggling. When he approached to congratulate them on their performance, that energy dissipated and she suggested tea in the galley.

John's twin, Harry, glared at him. Sherlock found being near her somewhat disturbing. Monozygotic rather than fraternal twins. No longer identical, years and determined effort had seen to that, but with so many similarities, her alpha scent put Sherlock on edge. Made him want to pull away. She appeared to feel the same, as she turned and immediately fell into a dispute with her former sexual partner, who was still dressed in her princess costume.

John was distracted by Yao's loud admission that she'd never seen live theater, which was quickly followed by Billy admitting the same. Yao could not possibly had known his objective, but with John thus focused on an energetic discussion of the merits of the theater experience, Sherlock accepted the invitation.

Per Sherlock's suggestion, they met in the galley. An area that had long since lost its initial utilitarian feeling as it was part of Khel's earliest redesign efforts in common crew areas.

"Oh, is that one of the bondmates of the Andorian who was hurt?" asked Elise. Her heart rate was slightly elevated. Her eyes flickering between Karidian and the monitors currently set to display the tops of an icy mountain range on Andor.

"Will your crew member recover?" asked Karidian. His heart rate was steady. The purse to his lips, the cast of his eyes, all indicated concern.

"Yes, and yes. She is due to be released from sickbay, but will require further rest." Karidian's heart rate remained the same. Elise's calmed. Sherlock reminded himself that they were both excellent actors. Although, not necessarily engineers. His analysis of the accident that had resulted in Sh'Alaack's injury had been inconclusive. A fail safe had been disengaged, and another system had been triggered. In any other circumstance, he'd have considered it an accident that required a redesign of the system in question, and not sabotage.

After tea, he took them to his favorite area on the ship, the observation bubble at the bottom of the saucer.

"Oh, my," said Elise standing in the doorway before taking a hesitant step onto the transparent tritanium and aluminum alloy, "it's like standing in the void."

"And the void looks back into us," said Karidian, who walked out into the middle of the room.

Sherlock was about to ask one of his pre-prepared questions, when Elise said, "You mentioned that you were captured by Colonel Green when you went to the past."

"Yes," he said slowly. The infinite stars passing below his feet. Mingled starlight that blurred with the speed of their passage.

"I'm sorry, but," she laughed and it was a far more carefree sound than he'd heard from her since the first night they'd met, "it's amazing to me that you are part of one of my oldest family stories. That John is a part of that story. That you were one of the ones they rescued that night," she lightly tapped a set of syncopated steps that echoed on the metal floor, "from the belly of the beast."

Given Mycroft's presence at the time, he felt compelled to say, "Technically I had already freed myself from my shackles and was in the process of escaping on my own."

"With the Analyst," said Elise with an acquisitory look that had Sherlock feeling more than a bit trapped. "John said it wasn't, but I don't see how it could have been anyone else."

"Sherlock, why is this your favorite place on the ship?" asked Karidian. He had knelt down by now and placed the palm of his hand on the floor.

It was the first time Karidian had addressed him directly.

Sherlock knelt next to him. "With the naked eyes, I am seeing the light of stars that are currently burning and distant ones that have long since died. Here on the skin of the ship, it's quiet. My mind is an engine that requires constant matter to consider or I tear myself apart, but here, I'm reminded there is more than enough to know. In my life, brief by comparison to the stars, I can travel and never run out of things to learn." He hadn't intended to say quite that much. But it was the same answer he'd given when John had asked.

Where John had smiled and squeezed his hand, Karidian looked up and gave a melancholy smile. "I saw the void, and you saw stars. Good. John deserves stars."

"Ah, love," said Elise. She bent and pressed a kiss to Karidian's head. Took his hand and squeezed it, pulling him to his feet. "It's not about what we deserve." She flashed Sherlock a smile. "Thank you for showing us this space, but we need to get ready for when we arrive at the meeting site. Not," she wagged the index finger of her free hand, "that you're getting out of answering questions about the Analyst and the Lady of the Flowers, but perhaps after we've done what we're here to do."

They walked out hand in hand. Sherlock unable to complete his questions couldn’t know if they were hand in hand in other ways.

With that in mind, he contacted Commodore Lestrade, who was in charge of coordinating the Federation meeting with the Tamarians. Lestrade greeted him with a smile that was a harried look by the time Sherlock had finished his suggestions for increased security at the meeting site.

Lestrade asked, "Is there a particular reason you're concerned about Ambassador Sirok's safety."

Sherlock growled. "Conjecture based on rumor and supposition that melt like fog under observation. Bricks made without straw that crumble under pressure."

"Now you sound like a Tamarian," said Lestrade, but he agreed to increase security.

Sherlock hoped it would be enough.


	8. John POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quotes from Hamlet and Macbeth.

John was so wrapped up in his own drama, he barely paid attention during briefings.

So it was a bit of a surprise when they arrived at meeting location to see Commodore Lestrade running the logistics.

John was beginning to feel like this was just a time of accidental meetings. He found himself blurting, "Sir, I didn't know you were going to be here."

Lestrade scraped a hand back through his silvery hair. "After the cluster-f on Auberj, I asked for diplomatic duty for a while." He looked around. "This is a far better occasion anyway. Opening relationships. Theater." He frowned. "Any idea what has Commander Holmes so obsessed with security at this event. The only ones with access to the site are Starfleet personnel, Federation and Tamarian ambassadors."

John crossed his arms. "I don't know, sir. It's nothing."

"As long as you think so," said Lestrade frowning. "So, I understand the Watsons of the Watson’s Theater are your parents."

John was happy to have the conversation shift. He'd always loved talking about his parents. His family traditions. The plays he'd seen them put on.

There was a formal dinner. He met the Federation and Tamarian ambassadors.

Sirok looked at his father oddly, which was to say he raised an eyebrow once. But that could mean anything. His chief of staff, a Bolian, went in the opposite direction thanking his parents profusely for agreeing to come to the meeting. While another member of his staff, looking stiff and annoyed, wanted a bit more control over exactly what words could or would be said during the performances, which set Mum off on a lecture on the nature of live versus holographic performance.

No one died. Of course.

Except in a play like it was supposed to happen with synthblood.

The troop put on Macbeth.

He sat next to Bailey, who he really had hoped would have a chance to talk to his sister about their common experience transitioning, but with everything going on he hadn't had a chance to arrange it. Baily said, "Isn't this an odd play to use for a treaty?"

Soo-Lin, who was sitting on his other side whispered, "I find it odder that John's sister is playing Lady Macbeth and not his mother."

He shushed both of them. Explaining that Mum liked to play the witches, replicating herself with a portable holo emitter would break the flow of the performance. As it was, he got the same goose bumps he always got when Mum really got her double-trouble toiling.

Harry was sober. Painfully raw when she got to the "out, out damn spot" speech.

Dad, as always, came alive on the stage. A brutal murderer growing colder and more dead inside with each death. Nothing like his father.

Nothing happened. Nothing went wrong.

Ambassador Sirok bowed to the Tamarians after the play's finish, and said, "The wryrd sisters to Banquo upon the moor."

"A crowned baby," answered the Tamarian Ambassador.

The next day, his family put on a series of short skits for the matinee.

They put on the story of the prodigal child. Harry, who was playing the good child, looked right at John as she complained to their father about killing the fatted calf when the wastrel child returned. Shelly was penitent as the prodigal. Changed by her experiences in the world and happy to return to her parents arms.

Nothing happened.

Of course not. It was ridiculous to think anything would happen.

They put on a skit about the legend of when Thasilar of Andor worked with members of a rival clan, racing across the ice, to bring medicine to a village stricken with fever. His Father, as Thasilar, gave an incredible performance. His willingness to do whatever it took to help was palpable. His mother equally amazing as she buried her ice hatchet for the common good.

Nothing happened.

Fine, the sound system cut out once, and the lights got twitchy, but what was live theater without technical difficulties. The Tamarians were an excellent audience and clapped at each flicker.

There was the Tale of Teleros the Tellerite, a gastronomic comedy. His mum was droll as Teleros. His father was wry as the new neighbor. His cousins made pratfalls across the stage until the final scene where the dinner was saved. Everything ending in laughter.

Nothing happened.

Lestrade came over to John after the skits and asked for an introduction to his parents, which he was more than happy to give. Unlike Sholto, Lestrade didn't come out with accusations. He wanted to talk about the tap routine during the final skit, as it turned out he'd studied tap dancing as a boy. John left his mum and Lestrade rattling off a series of steps at each other. Mum's the louder for wearing actual tap shoes, while the Tamerians watched in delight, and Sirok looked slightly perturbed. Another arch of his eyebrows.

John told himself it was his imagination that Sirok was looking at his dad, and not his mother and the highest ranking Starfleet representative engaging in a soft and hard shoe conversation.

The room was cleared to make way for the evening's play. His family efficiently tearing down the Tellerite banquet set. John left lest he be pressed into service. With so few stage hands, much of the work was also done by the actors.

That night they returned to find the space transformed. No longer a cozy Tellerite dining room, but a wide open space full of red and yellows cubes. _Logical Epigrams - Surak – a Life_ was an abstract sort of play with minimalist sets. Each character would use the cubes to build or destroy angular shapes. His father was once again transformed in the role of Surak, the father of the Vulcan discipline of logic and emotional control.

John glanced at the Vulcan ambassador, but a typical Vulcan, his expression gave away nothing. Stonn was sitting with his son Sestre near John, who would have thought a play of epigrams was a bit much for a child that age, but then again he wasn't Vulcan.

For that matter, he'd seen his parents put it on while still a toddler. There was a family story that his and Harry's wailing during the key bit had been part of one of the better performances.

John's attention drifted to the rest of the audience. Everyone was focused on what was on stage. Except Sherlock, halfway round the room, he was watching John.

John looked away.

The play reached the point where those who march beneath the raptor's wings, a chorus of his cousins led by Shelly, kicked the blocks and began the Epigrams of the Nuclear Bombing that would end in the death of Surak. There was a pre-recorded wail. His and Harry's childhood voices. Beneath it, John heard an electronic click.

From behind him, someone yelled, "Ambassador!" just as there was a small explosion under Sirok's chair. The ambassador was flung forward. His staff members were thrown to the sides.

The Tamarians looked at each other uncertainly and faintly clapped. John went to Sirok, and checked his vitals, but the percussive blast had been focused straight up. He was dead. His staff were bruised, but uninjured.

He looked up at Sherlock. At his father, who had sat down heavily on a block. His mum had gone into mum mode, checking to see if everyone was alright. If anyone needed a glass of water or a soother.

Sh'Alaack staggered from out of the light and sound booth, holding a phaser. Her expression was wild. She shouldn't even have been out of bed, much less at the play.

"Kodos, you don't deserve the honor of Ushaan. Of being allowed to fight my challenge to your honor. You should be killed like a rock slug. With fire and heat." She lifted her phaser.

His father stood up, quietly. Nodding as if this all made sense. "And so the play catches the conscience of the king. Let not Polonius nor Ophelia die. Kill Claudius even if he is at prayer. Who is to say if it is false or true."

John ignored his dad. He had to. He walked towards Sh'Alaack. "Bihr, you're injured. You should be in bed."

"If I'd killed him before, this wouldn't be happening." Tears streamed down Sh'Alaack's face. "The ambassador would be alive. What's my purpose for surviving if not to prevent this?"

"Sh'Alaack, think about what you're doing." John came closer. "Don't destroy your life for this. Please, think about your children. Don't you want to know them as they grow up? Let's present any information," he didn't dare look back to his father, "and let Security figure this out. Don't make yourself into a murderer. It's not who you are."

She looked John in the eyes. He kept his gaze steady until she lowered the phaser. She flung it away from herself and staggered two steps back.

Harry dove forward, grabbing it. "Banquo's ghost." She aimed at Sh'Alaack, but their father jumped in the path of the blast.

He was briefly – an infinite age – illuminated with light. The scent of burned flesh filling the air as he fell to the ground.

Harry sobbed, "Daddy, no." She dropped the phaser and knelt next to him. "You have to finish the performance. Daddy! Get up! Daddy, get up!"

John forced himself to check what he knew to be true.

Their father was dead. He closed his eyes, but it didn't help. Donovan pulled Harry to her feet. She didn't resist as Security surrounded her.

Again, Tamarians looked around uncertainly and clapped. Until one of the Human delegation fiercely whispered, "No, Banquo in the forest. Macduff's pretty little ones and their dam." The Tamarians stopped.

John's mother stood motionless on the stage. She dropped like a sand bag whose rope had been cut next to John's father. John held her. Cousins gathered around them.

He couldn't make out Sherlock in the tide of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are two more chapters after this.
> 
> http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Ushaan


	9. Sherlock POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lines from As You Like It, Hamlet, and Macbeth.

Sherlock watched John walk like a ghost through the ship.

John's father's funeral had been brief. Cremation per his last will and testament. Ashes to be scattered at his family's discretion.

In the wake of events, the peace talks had been postponed.

As the meetings broke up, and diplomats looked at each other in dismay for lack of a common language, Elise Watson walked up to the Tamarian ambassador and said, "When the snow melt from the maintain peak reaches the sea shore. When the soil warms and the flowers bloom. When the prodigal returns home to their father."

The Tamarian Ambassador bowed. "When the red ice cutter of Thasillar rounds Mount Fear." He smiled gently. "The fatted calf is prepared. The feast of Teleros continues long into the night."

Elise bowed again and went to oversee packing up theater equipment. Pushing aside relatives asking if she wanted to rest. A familiar set to her shoulders.

John's had the same determined cast as he stayed near her.  

Lestrade was going to transport the Watson theater company to Aldon Prime, where the company did most of their off season rehearsals. Where Harry would be sentence. Although, given the incoherence of her confessions in the wake of her father's death, she most likely be sent to Elba II for the treatment of the criminally insane.

Sherlock did not ask John to stay this time. He didn't prepare logical arguments.

John's father had died during a play about Surak. Logical arguments felt like a limb that was out of joint.

Sherlock had failed to stop any of it from happening. He should have seen that the killer was the sister. He should have been more explicit with Lestrade, who had added mechanisms to identify weapons and explosives when brought in on an individual's person, but had done nothing about items broken down and brought through in the stage props and backdrops. A flaw exploited by both Harry and Sh'Alaack.

Sh'Alaack had brokenly told Sherlock, "Sir, I thought if I guarded over the Ambassador, I would be able to prevent anything occurring. I would see the truth in the plays." She had managed to convince the engineers pressed into lighting and sound duty that she had been sent to help them. "I thought…" Sh'Alaack shook her head, "But when they began the play about one of Andor's greatest heroes, and that monster was to play him, it was all I could do to restrain myself to disruption. I should have cast the theater area into darkness."

"Yours is the least failure, Lieutenant. Go rest," said Sherlock, who knew that he should have stopped what had happened and saved John from this pain.

Sherlock managed to convince Lestrade to let him speak to Harry.

Lestrade said, "Are you concerned that she may have sabotaged the Bakerstreet?"

On that ridiculous suggestion, Sherlock gritted his teeth. "Yes. That's it. Exactly that." It was better than to say that over the last few days that John hadn't left his Mother's side.

Except when she visited Harry in the brig.

Then John was entirely absent.

John would need to know. Sherlock needed to know.

Harry's wrists were shackled to the top of a table in the Stargazer's brig with a force field. All the rage that had burned so brightly in her eyes the few times they'd met, had burned out. A flicker of it appeared when she looked at him. "Look, if it isn't Lochinvar, Romeo, the lover. Did John send you to look at my disordered nutshell mind?"

He observed her. The grey cast to her skin. The dark rings under her eyes. The sour tinge to her alpha scent. Alike and unlike John's. In truth, it was that similarity that had had him avoiding looking at her. Filled him with unease when he was near her.

_"All information is good," said his own sibling unhelpfully. "If you had looked, you would have seen the discrepancies. If you had talked to the ex-wife, you would have seen the image she took of Harry with one of the previous victims. All you had to do was look."_

He examined the shape of Harry's face. Thicker in some places than John's. Thinner in others. Her eyes, nose, and chin, identical. The same sleepless hollows beneath the eyes. Same square hands. Opposite dominant hand. Monozygotic twins. No callouses from operating a tricorder or phaser on her hands. Signs of heavy stage makeup. Silver ring. Longer hair caught in a bun.

"Aren't you going to say anything? They say I killed all those people and what for? I… killed him."

Sherlock observed the cadence to the way she talked. He did not ask her to repeat the words he'd once asked John to say to identify his accent.

"Are you here to call me a monster?" She turned her hands in the field, palm up. "What, will these hands ne'er be clear? No more than my Lord Father's. I marred all with this starting. Bloody hands."

_A riff on a line from the play about the murderer and his wife._

_Bloody Hands. The name echoed across his inland sea. Familiar, for all he might never know why. Who had Bloody Hands been? A pirate captain. A dead child, and if so whose child?_

_The sea John had given him bobbed the ships on playful waves, and blew a fresh breeze._

"Stop staring at me! Say something, you arse! You great big tit." She shook the table, pulling against the force field. The table was bolted to the ground.

The way she said that was utterly familiar. Futile. Familiar.

"What is wrong with you?"

He had come here for a purpose. It was not that. "I made me this way. And it's unlikely you'll be able to deduce why." By way of apology, he said, "It's not your fault. You’re an idiot. Most people are. However, you are unlikely to be any less stupid than John is." He added a smile, because he was given understand smiling made people feel more comfortable. Not that this had been his experience.

She barked a laugh. "I see why John likes you. You're as fucked up as he is. As we all are." She slid her chair closer. "So, is John happy to be proved to the good one? Cordelia, while I'm Goneril. But," she swayed, "that's not right. I loved my daddy. I would never… why did he jump in the way? Spots on my hands, not his."

"Did your father know that you knew that he was Kodos?" The only confirmation so far had been Harry's murder of the ambassador and her attempt on Sh'Alaack.

"No," she rattled the table again. "It would have crushed him. He cared about everything and everyone, and why can't people understand it was just a mistake. He was trying to save people. That's why I had to do it. It's why. No, no, no. He was my daddy."

"How did you know?" A crucial question. One he knew John would want to understand.

"The DNA test. While John turned into a little slut sniffing around every alpha that came by, you should know what you're getting into there." She rattled the table again. Shifting side to side in her seat. "I know he kept that up when he went to the academy. I could smell it on him when we went for our visit."

He would not be distracted. She was trying to distract him. "You continued to look for information about your relatives."

She smiled. "Mummy has such wonderful stories. I wanted Daddy to have… something. The second place I went to specialized in connecting Augments with their relatives. Most of it's shite. But, a lot of Augments enter their entire family trees. Famous relatives. Infamous ones. I was two percent matched with a second cousin, which led me to a first."

"Who alerted you to your father's real identity." She twitched. He made another conjecture. "They contacted Sholto, who contacted you." Her eyes flickered to the right.

"Player tried to play a player." Her smile was sour and sweet. Expression shifting again into a sigh. "It wasn't Daddy's fault. It was the fungus. It was all Sholto's fault. He contacted his old friends from Starfleet." The bonfire was back in her eyes. She bared her teeth at him.

"One of them followed up." Another conjecture.

Eagerly snapped up. "Ragged snapfuck came to my opening night. The night I was starring. _Much Ado About Nothing_. I was Benedict and Clare was my Beatrice and, she made me swear to kill my best friend for love of her. If you're not willing to kill for love, then it's not really love." Harry looked away. "That's not an excuse. There's no excuse. But that squamous frell came to me and wanted me to betray my family. I didn't mean to… no!" She straightened in her seat. A Watson, she looked him in the eyes. "Fuck Penny or pound. I meant to do it, and once done, I knew they must all be dealt with."

Swayed and just as quickly said, "I did it all to help him. Do you think he was angry with me when I tried to… when I."

"When you tried to kill Lieutenant Bihr Sh'Alaack, who in her own words was the last one to see Kodos alive. Was your father angry given his final act as Kodos was to cry and hug her in remorse, before he killed that life? You knew him better than I did. What do you think?"

He was genuinely curious. Two people. Raised in the same environment. Seeking in different ways to differentiate themselves. With such wildly divergent ideas about how to solve the question of serving the needs of the many or the one.

He'd never even imagined his parent's crying a single tear over any historical deed. Had an ounce of regret. Harry's moan demonstrated her own lack of imagination now well fed.

"John didn't send you." Tears were making their way down her cheeks. "Why are you here?"

The essential truth. "Because I want to understand."

She yelled at him to fuck off.

He wasn't her sibling. It didn't have the same meaning. He said, "How did you access the failsafe when Sh'Alaack was working."

She laughed in his face. Pulled back her hair and shifted in her seat, and for a moment, John was sitting across from him. The scent was wrong. She had John's blue eyes. She had John's hands and finger prints. She let the hair fall. "All I had to do was not be myself. Talk to this or that engineer and crawl through endless miles of tunnels."

He observed John melt away back into Harry.

"Love is merely a madness; and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do; and the reason why they are not so punished and cured is that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too." She laughed high and long. It trailed off into a giggle with a cruel smile. "Romeo, if John were sitting here across from you. And he'd committed murder, and you knew he'd done it. All that blood on his hands. Never to wash out. Would you kill the guards to get him out of here? Kill anyone who got in your way to keep him free as a hawk?"

He sighed. "The answer is more complicated than that." He pulled on that smile that never put anyone at ease. "It's not what I would do, but what he'd want me to do. On consideration, I think your father gave you his answer to how he felt about what you were doing."

She rattled the table and screamed at him again. She was haunted by her father. Her victims.

He left when she ran down back into a dull eyed stare.

Lestrade congratulated him for eliciting so many details. "I'm sure the counselors will find a way to use that in her treatment."

Sherlock stored it all in his memory palace for when John was ready to hear it.

If he would ever be ready.

Ghostlike, John wandered the Bakerstreet.

There was no one that Sherlock would rather be haunted by.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Lochinvar


	10. John POV

Nothing made sense. There was no logic. There was no reason. There was nothing.

He sat there with his mum. His dad in a cylinder on a table.

"Did you know?"

"About your father?" A question for a question. His mum poured him another cup of tea. At his nod, she said, "No, I knew he came to me haunted. Broken. Something grand dropped from a great height and shattered by the fall. I knew it was why he was so reckless when we first got together. Your grandfather asked me if I really wanted to take on someone with that many jagged edges inside." She sighed. "But I was already in love, and his broken pieces fit with mine. I wish I could say he calmed down after the accident where he was so badly injured, and I broke my arm, but that took several miscarriages and the two of you."

"But…" John stopped, once again reframing what he knew. Again. Again. Again. "I thought he had surgery to change his face so he wouldn't be recognized."

His mum sighed. "Sweetheart, your father joined a travelling theater troop that encountered hundreds of thousands of people over decades. Put his face on advertisements plastered on hundreds of worlds. If he wanted to hide, he could have swept floors in some remote colony where no one goes. When we met, I thought he was running from something painful, but now knowing, I wonder what if he wanted to caught. I don't know what friend helped him on the Enterprise, but what if they wanted to absolve that life out of pity and all he wanted was to be called to account. Heavy is the head that wears the crown What if I had simply asked him while we were on the Bakerstreeet? After that Andorian woman was injured?" Her left hand, the one that always reached for Dad's curled around her tea cup. "Would he be sitting next to me now? Playwright, write that."

John didn't want to keep asking. He wanted to let all this slide into nothing, but he kept thinking if he'd just believed Sherlock. Confronted his father. Didn't even know what to think. "And now that you know? Could you…" Turn him in? Love a killer?

She smiled at him. "We're all prodigals, John. The reason I told you so many stories about the Lady of the Flowers was to give you something to aspire to. To dream about." She held up her left hand. "The Lady of the Flowers. A wonderful name. Something that grew two generations after," she held up her right hand, "the Khans and their followers, who themselves were the result of experiments. I talked to Billy about his grandfather, who named himself Beowulf and took a Normal as a lover. Who was created by scientists who themselves were the products of untold generations of war. Beowulf didn't see himself as Grendel. Grendel's mother. Yet, he followed a flag that waged war that led to war. So many failures in imagination. Too few flowers." She shook her head. "I think it's easy to be a saint in paradise, but it's also true that none of the victims were mine."

"What about Harry?" None of this was helping. He just hurt. The other half of himself had killed. John had killed. In duty. In self defense. Defending Sherlock. They were both killers. The taint of those first Augments, created to be killing machines, was in them.

His mum poured herself another cup.

The silence coiled in the steam curling from the cups. "I think in the last week, I knew. But I didn't want to know. My baby. She was so insistent that she hadn't betrayed Clara, but she kept going out at all hours. She'd gotten so wild. I thought if I just supported her. Told her that she was loved that… but… I held back when I should have pushed. Oh, my baby." She put aside tea and they held each other for a bit.

Eventually, they let go. Mum raised her chin, and the show must go on.

Eventually, they spoke of what she'd do the next day, and the day after that. His mum told him on no account was he to ask for a leave of absence. "Sweetheart, you need to ground yourself in the life you've built for yourself. Just as I will. Jaberous Bandersnatch as it is, I will." She kissed his cheek and said goodbye.

John couldn't even bear to go see Harry before the Stargazer left. Could not look at her face.

Didn't want to see his own in the mirror.

Know that if he'd known or said something, then his father would be in custody, but alive. Sirok would be alive. If he'd believed Sholto. If. If. If.

Sh'Alaack took a leave of absence. Removing herself from treatment had pushed back some of the progress that she'd been making healing. John did not say goodbye as the little family borrowed the 221A for a visit to Andor.

He didn't even know what to say.

So he walked.

John walked until he couldn't. He wandered in circles until he came to the place that he'd been looking for.

Sherlock looked up as John came into his quarters. John walked straight to him and was enfolded. Sherlock's comforting scent surrounded him. So he let go. Ripping sobs out of his heart until there was nothing but a terrible emptiness.

Sherlock kissed his forehead and gently began peeling off his clothes. He said softly, "I don't want to have sex."

"I know." Sherlock did the same with his own clothes and folded them both into his bed. They lay together skin to skin. Sherlock's body blasting heat where John was nothing but cold. Pheromones all around him. Quiet comfort and no judgement. 

So they spent the night. Not sleeping. Just being.

He fell asleep to the sound of Sherlock's steady heartbeat.

**Author's Note:**

> http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_Conscience_of_the_King_(episode)
> 
> Have no fear, while John is in a bad space right now, it will come out right in the end.


End file.
